184 CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES

large tlian to small factories. In the export ofseveral articles of manufacture, a drawback is allowedby government, of a portion of the duty paid on theimportation of the raw material. In such circum-stances, certain forms must be gone through in orderto protect the revenue from fraud ; and a clerk, orone of the partners, must attend at the custom-house. If the quantity exported is inconsiderable,the small manufacturer frequently does not find thedrawback will repay him for his loss of time ; whilstthe agent of the large establishment occupies nearlythe same time in receiving a drawback of severalthousands, as the smaller exporter does of a fewshillings.

(219.) In many of the large establishments ofour manufacturing districts, substances are employedwhich are the produce of remote countries, and whichare, in several instances, almost peculiar to a fewsituations. The discovery of any new locality,where such articles exist in abundance, is a matterof great importance to any establishment consumingthem largely; and it has been found, in some in-stances, that the expense of sending persons to greatdistances, purposely to discover and to collect suchproduce, has been amply repaid. Thus it has hap-pened, that the snowy mountains of Sweden andNorway , as well as the warmer hills of Corsica,have been almost stripped of one of their vegetableproductions, by agents sent expressly from one ofour largest establishments for the dying of calicos.It is owfing to the same command of capital, and tothe scale on which the operations of a large factoryare carried, that their returns will admit of the expense